Hacking the Pandigital Novel (video)

Second Update: These instructions were written back in July 2011, and they stopped being valid by the first of August 2011 (the process got a lot easier and now gives you better results). You can find the new instructions here. Trust me, you'll want to use the new instructions.

Update: When I originally wrote this, I obviously wasn't clear in certain details. Several of the articles written about this hack have said that I did all the work. This is not true, nor was I trying to claim credit. Credit goes to a particular SlateDroid member by the name of "meth".

A couple weeks back I said I was going to try to root my Novel. Sorry about the delay. The process wasn't functional until Thursday night, and it wasn't until Saturday morning that it was actually worth bothering with.

First, if you want to hack your Novel then you really should visit SlateDroid and check out the Novel forum. That's where you can find help with troubleshooting. I'm not refusing to help; I just want to do it in a forum setting (it's easier).

I didn't go all the way and actually root the Novel. Instead I stopped after I installed a replacement home screen (so I could run other apps). I had trouble finding a home screen that I could download. For the most part they are only in the Marketplace and I don't have access. Eventually I found Panda Home, and it seems to be working okay.

Installing apps on the Novel requires the use of the command line (that's what works for me) but the process is relatively easy. You can't use the new apps from the existing home screen, so you'll also need to install a new home screen. I have Aldiko, Kindle, Fictionwise eReader and Kobo apps installed. I'd forgotten how much I liked Aldiko.

As you can see in the video, the page turn speed is significantly faster with Aldiko or the Kindle app. General responsiveness has also improved. I'm a lot happier with the Novel now that crappy original software has been bypassed. It turns out that it does have decent hardware specs.

P.S. Here are the instructions on how to hack your Novel. They've been checked by a couple people and I feel safe about sharing them. Use at Your Own Risk.

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148 thoughts on “Hacking the Pandigital Novel (video)”

This is damned exciting!! I can’t wait to see what happens with it now. I know many Android users want a tablet, and now here is an unbelievably inexpensive one to get their feet wet. Combine this will Google’s new app tool and magic can happen. Thanks again for the sneak peek of the video. It’s all very exciting!

Go to Bed Bath and Beyond use the 20% coupon and the $20 rebate and you have one GREAT price. Not bad at $116 after all the discounts get 2. Don’t think that I’m brave enough do the hack I will wait and see – the rebate at BB&B runs out in October. Good luck

I’m totally satisfied with my Novel. The bang for the buck far exceeds my expectations. I’ll hack my Novel in the near future. As always there’s things we would like to see but it didn’t have. ( like a place to add notes ).

You seriously need to install ADW Launcher and set the homescreen rows and columns to 8×8 or something more to your liking. Then you can have a lot more icons on that homescreen. A 4×4 arrangement leaves large gaps between them.

It has a place to add notes (stock), in books, at least. Tap and hold on the page, it will open a screen to leave a note. You can also highlight text. The hack gives you access to an office suite, too, btw. You can literally create word docs.

Flaky how? It’s about the hottest device on slatedroid for the moment (may be flavor of the week if we don’t figure out how to custom rom it)… and for $120-$150 on average, sometimes as low as $80…

Stock it does not open anything but MP4 files for video, it does handle jpg and pdfs. Hacked you can run any program that it has stock – so mp4, jpg and pdfs are still fair game. You can also add any compatible reader – giving you aldiko, kindle, etc all in one place – and any compatible video player. We have people running youtube as well as video players with avi, etc.

I’m really beginning to like the screen dimensions, but the Novel is still buggy. For example, last night I had to force a reboot because the Wifi refused to work. And at least one time (since I hacked it) the Novel has mysteriously drained the battery overnight (it appeared to be in sleep mode, but wasn’t).

You should also look at all the people who are happy with it. Apparently I’m in the minority.

I do not think sleep mode is off. I thought my unit was in sleep mode, when I when back in the room before turning on the light, I could still see the the home screen. It looked like it was burned in on the screen. I touch the screen and it light up bright. So is it sleep or just brightness turned down after sometime of non usage?

Just copy the pandahome installer batch file, right click and edit it. You will find: adb install pandahome.apk pause

(not sure that is the right name but serves the example). Substitute the pandahome.apk line with the name of the app you want to install. As long as the apps are in the same folder this works. I have actually installed all my apps this way plus it saves time since I can repeat in the same batch file the same install command with different apps and a pause in between each and I don’t have to mess with the command line.

The command line is located in the command prompt “box” which you can access by going to your accessories folder under windows (at least in XP) or by typing cmd.exe in the “run” command in windows. In any case if you were able to install the pandahome app per Nates instructions then just copy the “Install Panda Home.bat”, rename it (if you want; doesn’t matter the name as long as it has the .bat at the end) and edit it per my comment above. That way you don’t have to mess with the command prompt at all.

how do we control volume on MP4 playback if we hacked the volume buttons? i use mine as a video player as well, and i’m excited that i could do this hack and possibly install something like VLC player! thanks for the write up! so about those volume controls…?